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There are four lights! It is a long time since I saw that TNG episode, but I remember it as a respectful treatment of the subject. Any television series in a

There are four lights! It is a long time since I saw that TNG episode, but I remember it as a respectful treatment of the subject. Any television series in a modern setting in which characters that are portrayed as "good guys" use torture to achieve their goals is despicable propaganda. There has been more of that lately.

glogla 13y ago
On the other hand Burn Notice is pretty good with torture.
- TheCoelacanth 13y ago
  I think Burn Notice's treatment of the subject is good precisely because it doesn't glorify torture. An interrogation on Burn Notice is more likely to involve psychological manipulation instead of torture.
- angersock 13y ago
  They continually point out that trickery gets you farther than torture.
yodsanklai 13y ago
"Any television series in a modern setting in which characters that are portrayed as "good guys" use torture to achieve their goals is despicable propaganda." I'm stunned by how torture has became common in TV shows, at least since "24". But is it propaganda? to me, it was more a way to please the audience.
- exarch 13y ago
  "But is it propaganda? to me, it was more a way to please the audience." That, or it's purely coincidental that "24" debuted following disclosure of Bush's torture programs, and "Person of Interest" debuted ahead of common knowledge of the extent of mass surveillance. It may not be propaganda officially ordered and authored by some Ministry of Information, but it's the same thing no matter how many layers of abstraction it goes through: a way to shape the narrative and facts that inform the common person and allow them to form an understanding of an issue.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    "24" premiered in November 2001, and capitalized on the anti-terrorist sentiment in America after the September 11, 2011 attacks. The groundwork for Bush's "torture programs" were laid in late 2002, and came to public attention in June 2004, when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. The interpretation that better reconciles the timeline is that both the show and the torture program are attempts to capitalize on the same public sentiment that led to this song: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtesy_of_the_Red,_White_and_Blue_%28The_Angry_American%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtesy_of_the_Red,_White_and_... (select lyrics: "Cause we'll put a boot in your ass; It's the American way"), peaking at #1 on Billboard's list of Hot Country Songs.
    - rsynnott 13y ago
      "24" only really turned into torture fetish material a few seasons in, though.
      - rayiner 13y ago
        I don't know what happened in later seasons, I only watched the first few. There was torture in the show from Season 1. Jack violently interrogates two people in the first season, later executing one of them at the end of the season. Season 2 opens with a torture scene: http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Interrogation http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Interrogation, one of many such scenes in that season. I don't know how many people here really remember the mood back then. I was just starting college at Georgia Tech when Season 2 of "24" came on. It was hugely popular in my dorm. And the overall sentiment was pretty violent. In the run-up to the Iraq war the next year, it was less controversial to say that we should turn the middle east into a "glass parking lot" than to argue against going to war. And this is of course among people who were relatively liberal compared to the region as a whole.
        maxerickson 13y ago
        They also have a torture page (edit: oops, I see now that it is just a redirect to Interrogation): http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Torture http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Torture And an amputation page: http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Amputation http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Amputation (but a couple of those incidents don't involve torture; I remember being extremely put off by the scene in day 8 (I guess I switched it off before the scene was complete). Now I wonder how mainstream 24 really is, given how over the top it seems.
- Spooky23 13y ago
  I lean towards propaganda, because it affects other types of shows as well, sometimes in subtle ways. Cop shows are all about flailing around for a few minutes, followed by a hacker/database identifying the subject and dispatch of the SWAT team. If the computers are down, the good guy beats up the suspect. If the show is on CBS, they do some sort of amazing thing using their MS Surface while driving a Chevy-something. (Bad guys like Fords and Chryslers) Talk to a real cop. Whiz bang technology is the exception, not the rule. Successful detectives usually use their connections with the community to put two and two together.
  - WalterBright 13y ago
    > Bad guys like Fords and Chryslers I never suspected that I'm bad to the bone.
    - eru 13y ago
      No, you only thing you can infer, is that _not_ driving Fords and Chryslers means you are _not_ a bad guy.
- saraid216 13y ago
  I'm really disturbed by the idea that "add torture" is a formula for "pleasing the audience". That gets into the chicken-and-egg question of where culture comes from. Granted, if you ignore the either-or question and just accept that both the chicken and the egg are causative... It makes me think of something I recently read: http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=11663 http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=11663 No torture in this one, but... well.
- bashinator 13y ago
  It's not very good propaganda if the audience doesn't enjoy it.
- VladRussian2 13y ago
  >I'm stunned by how torture has became common in TV shows, at least since "24". But is it propaganda? to me, it was more a way to please the audience. Violence in its ultimate form. A viewer who associates him/herself with the protagonist gets the feeling of being a righteous God exerting the punishment. An irresistible catnip for "good people with values".
- lectrick 13y ago
  "24" and "Boardwalk Empire" are 2 series I stopped watching due to torture scenes. In "24" it was some scene where Jack Bauer had to shoot and kill one of his own guys in order to not blow his cover. I tapped out. In "Boardwalk" I lasted all the way to some scene where some poor sap got buried up to his neck on a beach and then they took a shovel to his head. That was it for me, no thanks.
- fatjokes 13y ago
  I'm definitely inclined to say propaganda. If it were just on its own, then I'd give the benefit of the doubt and say entertainment. However, it just happens to coincide with the revelations of America's use of torture in Iraq, etc., and the media's use of euphemisms like "enhanced interrogation techniques", etc, at least when discussing America. (It's still torture if it's Iran or China). I know, citation needed, but I'm lazy right now.
jerf 13y ago
That episode of TNG was a work of art. I think it's a bit unpleasant to watch, and it's supposed to be. It should be. But knowing about this stuff is part of being a real adult. That sort of evil is still out there. By contrast, what's the purpose of Fringe's torture? Am I actually supposed to find this entertaining? Honest, if leading, question.
- Ntrails 13y ago
  I don't remember a multitude traditional torture scenes in fringe? There were some "weird things up the nose mind reading" bits? I remember a security guard near the finale, but that's about it. Was it more common than my memory tells? What does that say about how little it impacted upon me?
  - CletusTSJY 13y ago
    I've watched the first four seasons of Fringe and I don't think the protagonists ever tortured anyone.
  - wmgries 13y ago
    The main problem I have with this article is that it doesn't give specific examples of when torture is used, especially by the show's protagonists. I love both Fringe and the X-Files, but I've actually more recently seen the X-Files (I'm on Season 7) so Fringe isn't exactly fresh in my mind. The main scene I remember where one of the protagonists resorts to torture is in the final season where Peter tortures a captured Observer to figure out how to put together a time portal stabilizer the Observers are using for transport. But if I remember the scene correctly, Peter doesn't even want information - he's just really pissed off at the Observers for killing his daughter. Even though this scene shows one of the protagonists doing something wrong, I question whether it was really trying to get the watcher's approval for the his actions. If anything, it was trying to show disapproval for his actions by depicting him as mentally unstable. I'm not saying that there aren't more scenes where the protagonists resort to torture, just that I can't remember them. A further question that I have is what exactly torture is in a sci-fi show. There are at least two episodes where the Fringe gang uses a device that reanimates a recently deceased enemy so they can get the necessary information to stop an impending attack. Is a scenario like this torture? And what about when one of the Observers attempts to read Walter's mind causing him a great deal of pain? This seems to be torture, but would the shows viewers think that governments should torture because Fringe depicted a character reading another character's mind? Finally, Ntrails makes a fantastic point. Typically, torture is not depicted as a critical story piece in Fringe. Torture occasionally makes appearances, but many of the shows fans can't even remember when and how often they were used. What does that say about the "legitimizing" force of depiction of torture in Fringe?
teddyh 13y ago
I also remember the Babylon 5 fourth season episode “Intersections in Real Time” as being particularly good.
- exarch 13y ago
  What a great show, and so relevant to this day and age. In terms of cultural commentary, it's every bit the equal of Roddenberry's best.
- Jach 13y ago
  I think I loved that treatment even more than Star Trek's. (The Inquisitor episode was interesting too...) In more recent shows (not that I've seen that many) my favorite treatment of torture is probably Theon's in Game of Thrones. There's no higher purpose to it, it's just sadistic pleasure taken from the torturing. The methods are more brutal too -- it's not some magic machine that just stimulates pain centers of the brain, there's pain plus body parts being lost permanently. I think by engaging the victim's imagination of what will come next the torture may be more effective...
- angersock 13y ago
  Probably one of my favorite quotes of all time is from that episode: You just have to say "no, I won't" one more time than they can say "yes, you will".
- alan_cx 13y ago
  For me, that is one of the best episodes of the best TV show ever made. I say that because its not just the episodes its self, which is brilliant, its the fact that by the time you get to that episode it really means something. There is a hell of a lot riding on the torture of Sheridan. The TNG episode, while in itself brilliant, sort comes out of no where. (Yes, Babylon 5 is my Linux/Mac. Of course there is opinion to the contrary, but Im openly deaf to them.)
- lurkinggrue 13y ago
  Funny, I just watched that last week. It really does feel like an episode of the Twilight Zone they way the paced it.
robocaptain 13y ago
For those of us who are interested but don't quite remember every TNG episode episode, it was "Chain of Command" from season 6: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_of_Command_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_of_Command_(Star_Trek:_Th...
- peeters 13y ago
  > Madred attempts another tactic to break Picard's will: he shows his captive four bright lights, and demands that Picard answer that there are five, inflicting intense pain on Picard if he does not agree. This in turn seems to be directly inspired by Nineteen Eighty-Four. When Winston is being tortured, O'Brien puts up four fingers and insists (under torture) that Winston sees five.
  - mturmon 13y ago
    Here's a troubling insight on the relationship of physical and mental torture from Ian Buruma's recent review (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/jan/09/china-reeducation-through-horror/?pagination=false http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/jan/09/china-r...) of a book on Maoist China: In most accounts, the distress caused by endless indoctrination, public denunciation, and self-criticism was worse than physical torture. Physical pain still allows the victim to retreat into himself. After days, months, years of mental torture there is no longer a self to retreat into. Besides self-abasement, victims were made to show their sincerity by persecuting others, sometimes friends or relatives. In many cases, suicide was the only way out. But ideally, if a person had finally reached the stage when his confessions were totally convincing, there was no longer any gap between acting and natural behavior, between faked and true thoughts. The process ended, in the phrase of a Chinese former victim, with “the physical and mental liquidation of oneself by oneself.”
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  Thank you. I was utterly baffled by the top comment's focus on Star Trek (I figured out what "TNG" meant) when there was no mention whatsoever in the article. Slate's got a good discussion of the piece: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2009/05/there_are_four_lights.html http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2009/05/there_...
tylerkahn 13y ago
Why do you think it's propaganda?
- alan_cx 13y ago
  Timing, channel, and political back drop.
copx 13y ago
I grew up watching Star Trek: TNG and that episode is something to remember indeed. It makes a strong rational and moral case against torture. While modern American TV shows do indeed do the opposite. I think I know the reason for this. Gene Roddenberry was a WW2 veteran i.e. the Geneva Conventions had a personal relevance to him. In the wars of the past you had to assume that many of your own guys would be captured by the enemy.. and that you might end up being one of them. In that scenario a strong international condemnation of torture suddenly looks way more appealing. In contrast, America's modern "wars" (I do not think these one-sided affairs deserve that name) do not lead to a noticeable number of American POWs. And you no longer have to worry about being drafted yourself either. I think the foundation of the acceptance of torture in contemporary America is the firm conviction of the supporters that they will never be at the receiving end. This type of thinking is unfortunately widespread among humans everywhere. It is never moral and often unwise to support a system you would not support if you did not have a favorable position within it.
- w_t_payne 13y ago
  Do unto others... How quickly morality fades ....
- morganherlocker 13y ago
  > It is never moral and often unwise to support a system you would not support if you did not have a favorable position within it. Is this an intentional reference to John Rawls' concept of the 'veil of ignorance' laid out in Theory of Justice? If not, you would definitely enjoy the ideas in the book. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance
  - npsimons 13y ago
    Exactly what I was reminded of; Rawl's theory of justice, paraphrased: the only just system/rules are ones you wouldn't have a problem being on either side of.
  - snogglethorpe 13y ago
    Isn't it just Kant's "categorical imperative"...? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative
xefer 13y ago
The TNG episode is a direct reference to Orwell's "1984" (but with lights instead of fingers) https://archive.org/details/HowManyFingersWinston-NineteenEighty-four https://archive.org/details/HowManyFingersWinston-NineteenEi...
JohnBooty 13y ago
Any television series in a modern setting in which characters that are portrayed as "good guys" use torture to achieve their goals is despicable propaganda. Yes. Absolutely. I must admit, though... when compared to the cartoonish patriotic jingo-fied violence of the 1980s, where Rambo and the A-Team defeated countless enemies in settings that always felt like a walk in the park... perhaps the torture thing is the lesser of the two evils? The 1980s seemed to want to tell us that war was a melodramatic, often bloodless struggle between the white-hatted good guys and the black-hatted bad guys. If there's a small silver lining to today's torture-promoting crap, at least it's that war is portrayed a bit closer to being the horrible, bloody, morally-confused hell where the "good guys" often look and act an awful lot like the "bad guys." Doesn't take away from your point at all. Totally agree that when torture is portrayed as anything less than evil, there is a very serious problem.
- exarch 13y ago
  "I must admit, though... when compared to the cartoonish patriotic jingo-fied violence of the 1980s, where Rambo and the A-Team defeated countless enemies in settings that always felt like a walk in the park... perhaps the torture thing is the lesser of the two evils?" At least the heroes in those implausible stories behaved like heroes, rather than villains who you only identify with out of some jingoistic team spirit.
- gbog 13y ago
  > torture is portrayed I think the root of the problem is more about torture being portrayed at all. Even if you portray it a the evilest thing, you are still playing with the spectator's bowels and disgust thresholds in ways that cannot bring anything good. There is room for torture depiction is some niche genres, like horror or sadism (e.g. Salo) but I can't understand how it should come to mainstream media as TV series and take such a big room. Just like sex and pron: it is ok, but please let it be marginal.
  - JohnBooty 13y ago
    That's a really unfortunate opinion regarding the role of art. I don't want a world where art is expected to stay away from uncomfortable topics. Art (and I'm including popular entertainment) plays a very important role in how we think about and understand topics.
stormbrew 13y ago
On the subject of SF portrayals of futuristic torture, there's an episode late in Babylon 5 where torture is being used for a more realistic purpose than is usual on American TV -- to elicit utterly and completely false confession and to name names. It's an intense, highly focused, episode and incredibly well done. One of my favourite hours of SF TV ever.
aaronbrethorst 13y ago
I thought BSG's treatment of insurgency and torture—especially given that it was contemporaneous with the second Iraq War—was very well done.

glogla 13y ago

On the other hand Burn Notice is pretty good with torture.

TheCoelacanth 13y ago
I think Burn Notice's treatment of the subject is good precisely because it doesn't glorify torture. An interrogation on Burn Notice is more likely to involve psychological manipulation instead of torture.
angersock 13y ago
They continually point out that trickery gets you farther than torture.

yodsanklai 13y ago

"Any television series in a modern setting in which characters that are portrayed as "good guys" use torture to achieve their goals is despicable propaganda." I'm stunned by how torture has became common in TV shows, at least since "24". But is it propaganda? to me, it was more a way to please the audience.

exarch 13y ago
"But is it propaganda? to me, it was more a way to please the audience." That, or it's purely coincidental that "24" debuted following disclosure of Bush's torture programs, and "Person of Interest" debuted ahead of common knowledge of the extent of mass surveillance. It may not be propaganda officially ordered and authored by some Ministry of Information, but it's the same thing no matter how many layers of abstraction it goes through: a way to shape the narrative and facts that inform the common person and allow them to form an understanding of an issue.
- rayiner 13y ago
  "24" premiered in November 2001, and capitalized on the anti-terrorist sentiment in America after the September 11, 2011 attacks. The groundwork for Bush's "torture programs" were laid in late 2002, and came to public attention in June 2004, when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. The interpretation that better reconciles the timeline is that both the show and the torture program are attempts to capitalize on the same public sentiment that led to this song: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtesy_of_the_Red,_White_and_Blue_%28The_Angry_American%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtesy_of_the_Red,_White_and_... (select lyrics: "Cause we'll put a boot in your ass; It's the American way"), peaking at #1 on Billboard's list of Hot Country Songs.
  - rsynnott 13y ago
    "24" only really turned into torture fetish material a few seasons in, though.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      I don't know what happened in later seasons, I only watched the first few. There was torture in the show from Season 1. Jack violently interrogates two people in the first season, later executing one of them at the end of the season. Season 2 opens with a torture scene: http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Interrogation http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Interrogation, one of many such scenes in that season. I don't know how many people here really remember the mood back then. I was just starting college at Georgia Tech when Season 2 of "24" came on. It was hugely popular in my dorm. And the overall sentiment was pretty violent. In the run-up to the Iraq war the next year, it was less controversial to say that we should turn the middle east into a "glass parking lot" than to argue against going to war. And this is of course among people who were relatively liberal compared to the region as a whole.
      - maxerickson 13y ago
        They also have a torture page (edit: oops, I see now that it is just a redirect to Interrogation): http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Torture http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Torture And an amputation page: http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Amputation http://24.wikia.com/wiki/Amputation (but a couple of those incidents don't involve torture; I remember being extremely put off by the scene in day 8 (I guess I switched it off before the scene was complete). Now I wonder how mainstream 24 really is, given how over the top it seems.
Spooky23 13y ago
I lean towards propaganda, because it affects other types of shows as well, sometimes in subtle ways. Cop shows are all about flailing around for a few minutes, followed by a hacker/database identifying the subject and dispatch of the SWAT team. If the computers are down, the good guy beats up the suspect. If the show is on CBS, they do some sort of amazing thing using their MS Surface while driving a Chevy-something. (Bad guys like Fords and Chryslers) Talk to a real cop. Whiz bang technology is the exception, not the rule. Successful detectives usually use their connections with the community to put two and two together.
- WalterBright 13y ago
  > Bad guys like Fords and Chryslers I never suspected that I'm bad to the bone.
  - eru 13y ago
    No, you only thing you can infer, is that _not_ driving Fords and Chryslers means you are _not_ a bad guy.
saraid216 13y ago
I'm really disturbed by the idea that "add torture" is a formula for "pleasing the audience". That gets into the chicken-and-egg question of where culture comes from. Granted, if you ignore the either-or question and just accept that both the chicken and the egg are causative... It makes me think of something I recently read: http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=11663 http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=11663 No torture in this one, but... well.
bashinator 13y ago
It's not very good propaganda if the audience doesn't enjoy it.
VladRussian2 13y ago
>I'm stunned by how torture has became common in TV shows, at least since "24". But is it propaganda? to me, it was more a way to please the audience. Violence in its ultimate form. A viewer who associates him/herself with the protagonist gets the feeling of being a righteous God exerting the punishment. An irresistible catnip for "good people with values".
lectrick 13y ago
"24" and "Boardwalk Empire" are 2 series I stopped watching due to torture scenes. In "24" it was some scene where Jack Bauer had to shoot and kill one of his own guys in order to not blow his cover. I tapped out. In "Boardwalk" I lasted all the way to some scene where some poor sap got buried up to his neck on a beach and then they took a shovel to his head. That was it for me, no thanks.
fatjokes 13y ago
I'm definitely inclined to say propaganda. If it were just on its own, then I'd give the benefit of the doubt and say entertainment. However, it just happens to coincide with the revelations of America's use of torture in Iraq, etc., and the media's use of euphemisms like "enhanced interrogation techniques", etc, at least when discussing America. (It's still torture if it's Iran or China). I know, citation needed, but I'm lazy right now.

jerf 13y ago

That episode of TNG was a work of art. I think it's a bit unpleasant to watch, and it's supposed to be. It should be. But knowing about this stuff is part of being a real adult. That sort of evil is still out there. By contrast, what's the purpose of Fringe's torture? Am I actually supposed to find this entertaining? Honest, if leading, question.

Ntrails 13y ago
I don't remember a multitude traditional torture scenes in fringe? There were some "weird things up the nose mind reading" bits? I remember a security guard near the finale, but that's about it. Was it more common than my memory tells? What does that say about how little it impacted upon me?
- CletusTSJY 13y ago
  I've watched the first four seasons of Fringe and I don't think the protagonists ever tortured anyone.
- wmgries 13y ago
  The main problem I have with this article is that it doesn't give specific examples of when torture is used, especially by the show's protagonists. I love both Fringe and the X-Files, but I've actually more recently seen the X-Files (I'm on Season 7) so Fringe isn't exactly fresh in my mind. The main scene I remember where one of the protagonists resorts to torture is in the final season where Peter tortures a captured Observer to figure out how to put together a time portal stabilizer the Observers are using for transport. But if I remember the scene correctly, Peter doesn't even want information - he's just really pissed off at the Observers for killing his daughter. Even though this scene shows one of the protagonists doing something wrong, I question whether it was really trying to get the watcher's approval for the his actions. If anything, it was trying to show disapproval for his actions by depicting him as mentally unstable. I'm not saying that there aren't more scenes where the protagonists resort to torture, just that I can't remember them. A further question that I have is what exactly torture is in a sci-fi show. There are at least two episodes where the Fringe gang uses a device that reanimates a recently deceased enemy so they can get the necessary information to stop an impending attack. Is a scenario like this torture? And what about when one of the Observers attempts to read Walter's mind causing him a great deal of pain? This seems to be torture, but would the shows viewers think that governments should torture because Fringe depicted a character reading another character's mind? Finally, Ntrails makes a fantastic point. Typically, torture is not depicted as a critical story piece in Fringe. Torture occasionally makes appearances, but many of the shows fans can't even remember when and how often they were used. What does that say about the "legitimizing" force of depiction of torture in Fringe?

teddyh 13y ago

I also remember the Babylon 5 fourth season episode “Intersections in Real Time” as being particularly good.

exarch 13y ago
What a great show, and so relevant to this day and age. In terms of cultural commentary, it's every bit the equal of Roddenberry's best.
Jach 13y ago
I think I loved that treatment even more than Star Trek's. (The Inquisitor episode was interesting too...) In more recent shows (not that I've seen that many) my favorite treatment of torture is probably Theon's in Game of Thrones. There's no higher purpose to it, it's just sadistic pleasure taken from the torturing. The methods are more brutal too -- it's not some magic machine that just stimulates pain centers of the brain, there's pain plus body parts being lost permanently. I think by engaging the victim's imagination of what will come next the torture may be more effective...
angersock 13y ago
Probably one of my favorite quotes of all time is from that episode: You just have to say "no, I won't" one more time than they can say "yes, you will".
alan_cx 13y ago
For me, that is one of the best episodes of the best TV show ever made. I say that because its not just the episodes its self, which is brilliant, its the fact that by the time you get to that episode it really means something. There is a hell of a lot riding on the torture of Sheridan. The TNG episode, while in itself brilliant, sort comes out of no where. (Yes, Babylon 5 is my Linux/Mac. Of course there is opinion to the contrary, but Im openly deaf to them.)
lurkinggrue 13y ago
Funny, I just watched that last week. It really does feel like an episode of the Twilight Zone they way the paced it.

robocaptain 13y ago

For those of us who are interested but don't quite remember every TNG episode episode, it was "Chain of Command" from season 6: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_of_Command_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_of_Command_(Star_Trek:_Th...

peeters 13y ago
> Madred attempts another tactic to break Picard's will: he shows his captive four bright lights, and demands that Picard answer that there are five, inflicting intense pain on Picard if he does not agree. This in turn seems to be directly inspired by Nineteen Eighty-Four. When Winston is being tortured, O'Brien puts up four fingers and insists (under torture) that Winston sees five.
- mturmon 13y ago
  Here's a troubling insight on the relationship of physical and mental torture from Ian Buruma's recent review (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/jan/09/china-reeducation-through-horror/?pagination=false http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/jan/09/china-r...) of a book on Maoist China: In most accounts, the distress caused by endless indoctrination, public denunciation, and self-criticism was worse than physical torture. Physical pain still allows the victim to retreat into himself. After days, months, years of mental torture there is no longer a self to retreat into. Besides self-abasement, victims were made to show their sincerity by persecuting others, sometimes friends or relatives. In many cases, suicide was the only way out. But ideally, if a person had finally reached the stage when his confessions were totally convincing, there was no longer any gap between acting and natural behavior, between faked and true thoughts. The process ended, in the phrase of a Chinese former victim, with “the physical and mental liquidation of oneself by oneself.”
dredmorbius 13y ago
Thank you. I was utterly baffled by the top comment's focus on Star Trek (I figured out what "TNG" meant) when there was no mention whatsoever in the article. Slate's got a good discussion of the piece: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2009/05/there_are_four_lights.html http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2009/05/there_...

tylerkahn 13y ago

Why do you think it's propaganda?

alan_cx 13y ago
Timing, channel, and political back drop.

copx 13y ago

I grew up watching Star Trek: TNG and that episode is something to remember indeed. It makes a strong rational and moral case against torture. While modern American TV shows do indeed do the opposite. I think I know the reason for this. Gene Roddenberry was a WW2 veteran i.e. the Geneva Conventions had a personal relevance to him. In the wars of the past you had to assume that many of your own guys would be captured by the enemy.. and that you might end up being one of them. In that scenario a strong international condemnation of torture suddenly looks way more appealing. In contrast, America's modern "wars" (I do not think these one-sided affairs deserve that name) do not lead to a noticeable number of American POWs. And you no longer have to worry about being drafted yourself either. I think the foundation of the acceptance of torture in contemporary America is the firm conviction of the supporters that they will never be at the receiving end. This type of thinking is unfortunately widespread among humans everywhere. It is never moral and often unwise to support a system you would not support if you did not have a favorable position within it.

w_t_payne 13y ago
Do unto others... How quickly morality fades ....
morganherlocker 13y ago
> It is never moral and often unwise to support a system you would not support if you did not have a favorable position within it. Is this an intentional reference to John Rawls' concept of the 'veil of ignorance' laid out in Theory of Justice? If not, you would definitely enjoy the ideas in the book. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance
- npsimons 13y ago
  Exactly what I was reminded of; Rawl's theory of justice, paraphrased: the only just system/rules are ones you wouldn't have a problem being on either side of.
- snogglethorpe 13y ago
  Isn't it just Kant's "categorical imperative"...? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative

xefer 13y ago

The TNG episode is a direct reference to Orwell's "1984" (but with lights instead of fingers) https://archive.org/details/HowManyFingersWinston-NineteenEighty-four https://archive.org/details/HowManyFingersWinston-NineteenEi...

JohnBooty 13y ago

Any television series in a modern setting in which characters that are portrayed as "good guys" use torture to achieve their goals is despicable propaganda. Yes. Absolutely. I must admit, though... when compared to the cartoonish patriotic jingo-fied violence of the 1980s, where Rambo and the A-Team defeated countless enemies in settings that always felt like a walk in the park... perhaps the torture thing is the lesser of the two evils? The 1980s seemed to want to tell us that war was a melodramatic, often bloodless struggle between the white-hatted good guys and the black-hatted bad guys. If there's a small silver lining to today's torture-promoting crap, at least it's that war is portrayed a bit closer to being the horrible, bloody, morally-confused hell where the "good guys" often look and act an awful lot like the "bad guys." Doesn't take away from your point at all. Totally agree that when torture is portrayed as anything less than evil, there is a very serious problem.

exarch 13y ago
"I must admit, though... when compared to the cartoonish patriotic jingo-fied violence of the 1980s, where Rambo and the A-Team defeated countless enemies in settings that always felt like a walk in the park... perhaps the torture thing is the lesser of the two evils?" At least the heroes in those implausible stories behaved like heroes, rather than villains who you only identify with out of some jingoistic team spirit.
gbog 13y ago
> torture is portrayed I think the root of the problem is more about torture being portrayed at all. Even if you portray it a the evilest thing, you are still playing with the spectator's bowels and disgust thresholds in ways that cannot bring anything good. There is room for torture depiction is some niche genres, like horror or sadism (e.g. Salo) but I can't understand how it should come to mainstream media as TV series and take such a big room. Just like sex and pron: it is ok, but please let it be marginal.
- JohnBooty 13y ago
  That's a really unfortunate opinion regarding the role of art. I don't want a world where art is expected to stay away from uncomfortable topics. Art (and I'm including popular entertainment) plays a very important role in how we think about and understand topics.

stormbrew 13y ago

On the subject of SF portrayals of futuristic torture, there's an episode late in Babylon 5 where torture is being used for a more realistic purpose than is usual on American TV -- to elicit utterly and completely false confession and to name names. It's an intense, highly focused, episode and incredibly well done. One of my favourite hours of SF TV ever.

aaronbrethorst 13y ago

I thought BSG's treatment of insurgency and torture—especially given that it was contemporaneous with the second Iraq War—was very well done.